My car had a problem with the drivers seat, where the foam cushion has collapsed on the left side of the seat upright. Basically, you’re left leaning against the seat metal frame, which is not very comfortable… So why has this happened? Basically, when getting into the car, there is a tendency to fall towards the centre of the vehicle, with only this left edge of the seat upright preventing you from falling into the gap between the front seats. over time, the additional stress of the seat upright cushion will likely have torn the PU foam.







I’ve read on this and other forums that it might be possible to swap passenger & driver’s seats. Thats an interesting approach as these cars are all over 10 years old now - so driver’s seats will likely have suffered a lot of wear - the passenger seats less wear, as there won’t always be a passenger in the vehicle… This wasn’t an option for me, as the drivers seat condition was too poor

Replacement foam uprights are available - but they are not cheap… I was just going to acquire another drivers seat from a breaker - but noticed on the pictures in a number of adverts a “tell tale” line that suggested that those seats may have the same problem as mine.

So I bought a seat upright from and set about stripping it for parts. What follows is a description of how I used a donor passenger seat to repair a failed drivers seat - hopefully it might be of use to someone contemplating the same thing..


1. Start by disconnecting the U-channel at the bottom of the seat pack - it just unhooks.




2. next, unclip the tension cord - see image



3. remove the clip holding the cable for the heated seat in place.




4. If applicable, remove the manual lumbar control wheel - it just pulls off
5. Start peeling the cover off - until you reach this stage




6. Disconnect the upper end of the two tensioning cords
 - they unhook in the same way as the lower end did at step 2.


7. Unhook the plastic u-channel from the metal seat frame - there is a small hole on the left side of the frame that you can use to help start releasing the plastic u-channel





8. Once the channel is removed, you will see 3 metal Hog Rings - remove the by cutting
.



9. Release the two plastic sockets for the head restraint frame the top of the seat upright - do this by pressing the retaining clip from inside the frame - it is accessible & comes off quite easily
10. Continue to peel the cover off the seat, so that it is left held in place by 2 hog rings on each side of the PU foam. Be careful not to put too much tension on these as the metal rod embedded in the PU foam pulls out quite easily.



11. cut the rings and separate the cover from the PU foam cushion.










The next step was to test the heated seat element with a multimeter, to make sure it was working...




Next, the damaged seat upright needs removing from the vehicle as follows:-

Removing the seat upright from the vehicle.

1. Remove the headrest. [reduces weight and makes extracting the upright easier later on…]
2. move the seat as far back & raise the height of the base as far a possible to make working under the seat easier.
3. remove the two M10 bolts from the underside of the front of the seat base.
4. tilt the front edge of the seat base upwards to about 25 degrees and lift it clear of the seat base.
5. Disconnect the Heated seat connector [green connector located towards the centre of the vehicle] & the occupant pressure sensor cables [brown connector located towards the outside of the seat.. Remove the airbag cable and the seat upright heater cable from their clips at the rear of the seat base.
6. Remove the seat base from the vehicle.

7. Now move the seat as far forward as possible, before disconnecting the car battery.
8. The seat upright is held in place by 4 T40 Torx bolts. To get at the rear bolts on each side, you need to remove the plastic valence. This is done by removing the small torx screws holding each valence in place.



The outer valence is held in place by clips at the front of the seat - there is no need to remove these.
The inner valance is held in place by a push clip - just push this out from the frame with a blunt screwdriver.



Now disconnect all cables - I found that the connectors were really awkward to access - however, by removing the metal bracket supporting the connector (two small Torx screws), it is much easier



9. undo the four torx screws holding the seat upright against the seat base - starting with the inner rear one, then the outer rear, then the inner forward bolt and finally the outer forward bolt - make sure to support the seat back when removing the forward bolt, otherwise it will fall backwards.

10. Remove the seat upright from the vehicle through the rear passenger door..




Next step was to strip down the damaged seat upright as described earlier... That soon revealed the problem...







Next, the donor seat foam was prepared by marking the foam around where the airbag will be. I did this by removing the foam covering the Airbag from the damaged seat and using it as a template for the donor seat foam (it pushes out very easily - no tools needed. A hacksaw blade makes light work of cutting the foam....








Next step is to rebuild the original seat upright with the donor foam. But before doing that, i added an extra pair of lumbar support springs from the donor seat frame - to make the lumbar support more firm...
(circled in red in the image below)



Rebuild is the reverse of disassembly!

Start by turning the seat cover inside out. Then reconnect the upper metal rods to the seat foam - Use cable ties instead of hog rings - just don't do them up too tight!

Once the seat upright has been rebuilt, install it in the car - again using the reverse of the process described earlier.

A truly comprehensive and well written "How To" guide that will no doubt prove useful for many owners who have the same problem.